Equipment

You will enter the game with a set of starting equipment designed to fit your character setup, and you can get any of the basic equipment from the store in Glyphstone Village for free (type 'take' in the store to list all items available). A common mistake is loading yourself with as much equipment as you can carry. Unlike in most muds, in God Wars II a lightly armoured character can do just as well as somebody in full plate armour.

The armour you wear and weapons you wield (or have sheathed) will increase your encumbrance. Higher encumbrance slows you down and limits your feet techniques, defence and cooldown with each additional encumbrance level. There are four encumbrance levels, which are colour coded in your 'score' as follows (the actual colours can be modified using the 'colour' command):

Encumbrance is less than or equal to your Brawn: Unencumbered. +5 Speed. You have access to all feet techniques. Encumbrance coloured CYAN in your score.

Encumbrance is more than two times your Brawn: Medium encumbrance. No Speed modifier. Lose access to run and most kick techniques. Encumbrance coloured MAGENTA in your score.

Encumbrance is more than three times your Brawn: Heavy encumbrance. -5 Speed (or half, whichever is better). Can no longer jog, kick, or jump. Encumbrance coloured RED in your score.

Note that encumbrance higher than 25 means you are always at least lightly encumbered, and encumbrance above 50 means you're always at least at medium, regardless of Brawn. To see how much a piece of armour or a weapon will add to your encumbrance, 'look' at it. (This will also give you additional information, for example about special bonuses, weaknesses or preferred styles.

Note:

To look at an item you're wearing or wielding, put a '+' (plus) sign in front of the item's name: 'look +sword'. Similarly, a '-' (minus) sign will look at an item in your environment.

Armours made from different materials have different encumbrance, as well as different protection ratings. Leather armour is lighter, but provides less protection than steel. Bronze is heavy and less hardy than steel, but provides additional protection from mental attacks.

Note:

To get a piece of armour made from particular material in the store, keep taking and dropping items until you get the one you want. Look at the different items and experiment.

To equip armour, 'wear' it, to hold a weapon, 'wield' it. If you 'wear' a weapon, it becomes sheathed and you can 'draw' it later. Small shields (bucklers and target shields) can also be sheathed on your arm and back respectively, but they are worn in your hand by default. (This means you have to 'sheathe' them after wearing them.) To return a worn or wielded item back to your inventory, 'remove' it. Note that you cannot remove items during combat, but you can sheathe them.

Note:

You can wield any item you can pick up, including armour, bottles, torches, severed limbs or even small creatures, and use it as an improvised weapon.

Many weapons can be wielded either in one hand, or both. To hold a weapon with both hands, wield it in one hand, then perform the 'a' ('assist') move with the other hand:

wield katana

You clutch a steel katana in your right hand.

la

Ok.

You grip the hilt of your katana with both hands.

You can view a list of all worn items with the 'equipment' (or 'eq') command and all other items you are carrying with the 'inventory' (or 'i') command. The 'armour' command will show you how much protection against different types of damage you have for each location.

Protection rating for armours consists of two factors, soak and auto-absorb. Each blow has to pass through all armour layered on the location that was hit, and each piece of armour will soak a percentage of the damage. Auto-absorb is a fixed value which is subtracted after all percentage modifiers have been applied. Certain talents and weapons grant bypass to attacks, which is a percentage subtracted from your opponent's soak, but only once per location - not for each piece of armour separately. Some talents, in turn, grant an immunity bonus which cannot be bypassed.

When you first start, you will be using basic equipment, but as you grow and can take on harder opponents in the dungeons scattered around the Realm plane, you will start collecting magical armour and weapons. Magical equipment is generated randomly, with bonuses based on the type of item and difficulty of the monster that originally carried it.

Note:

A defeated monster will not drop all items it was wearing and wielding. If it drops a piece of magical equipment, you will see it fall to the floor.

All magical items have a radiation rating. The purpose of radiation is to limit the total amount of magical equipment you can wear, but still allow some freedom of choice. Thus, you can opt to wear one or two very powerful items with high radiation, or a number of minor items with lower radiation rating. The maximum amount of radiation you can withstand is equal to your Divine Age times 10, and you can view it (as well as your current radiation total) in your 'score'.